Archbishop Cyrille Bustros and Deputy Foreign Ministers Danny Ayalon
Posted on 10/25/2010 2:30:48 PM PDT by NYer
.- The Vatican drew fire from the Israeli government for allegedly turning the recent Synod for the Middle East into a "forum for political attacks."
Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, downplayed the criticism, which was lodged by Israel’s deputy foreign minister.
Father Lombardi said the Synod was "largely positive" and that the statements of individual participants did not reflect the overall consensus of the synod.
Tensions flared in response to a statement from one synod participant, Melkite Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros of Newton, Mass.
In a press conference Oct. 23, he was asked about a passage in the synod's final communique that stressed that “the Word of God” should not be misused to “wrongly justify injustices.” This, the bishops said, "is not acceptable."
Rather, they said, "recourse to religion must lead every person to see the face of God in others and to treat them according to their God-given prerogatives and God’s commandments, namely, according to God's bountiful goodness, mercy, justice and love for us."
Asked to clarify what this passage meant, Archbishop Bustros responded that Christians cannot speak of a specific "promised land," because Jesus Christ had come to establish the Kingdom of God in the world and to make all who follow him his "chosen ones."
That means, Archbishop Bustros explained, that the idea of the "the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians." He added: "Sacred Scripture should not be used to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestine.”
These comments were met by "disappointment," from Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon, the leader of the Israeli delegation that is participating in bilateral talks with the Holy See to determine the official status of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land.
Ayalon complained that, the "important synod (had) become a forum for political attacks on Israel in the best history of Arab propaganda."
The synod, he added, "was hijacked by an anti-Israel majority."
He added that the Israeli government was "appalled" at Archbishop Bustros' words and called for the Vatican to distance itself from them. The "outrageous" comments, he said, "are a libel against the Jewish people and the state of Israel and should not be construed as the Vatican's official position."
In a message aired by Vatican Radio Oct. 25, the Vatican spokesman aimed to deflate the controversy.
He said the final message is "the only common written text approved by the synod," and that the "great richness and variety of contributions given" by those participating in the synod "must not be considered on their own as the voice of the synod as a whole."
And in their final message, the synod bishops called for all governments in the region to promote “the rights of citizenship, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, freedom of education and teaching, and access to the communications media.”
In addition, they said: “We appeal to you to redouble your efforts to establish a just and lasting peace throughout the region and to stop the arms race. This will lead to security and economic prosperity and stop the haemorrhage of emigration which empties our countries of its living resources.”
The synod participants hope to enact change in the Middle East through a variety of propositions released at the conclusion of the two-week meeting.
The synod fathers made 44 propositions to Pope Benedict XVI, including the possibility of allowing married priests from Eastern Churches to work outside the historic boundaries of their rites; initiatives for more intensive formation of seminarians and all Christians in the Middle East; and a wide variety of other pastoral ideas for the Churches there, such as broader outreach through the use of new media.
Pope Benedict XVI will examine these propositions and the synod discussion to later issue an Apostolic Exhortation to clarify details of the synod proceedings. This is a papal document in which he studies the situation in the Middle East and offers his teachings to guide the Church's future there.
Synod ping!
May God protect Israel from those who proport to speak for Him but would harm His people.
The MSM is doing their usual and making it out as if the Vatican has issued a critical statement about Israel. In truth, it has been one Eastern Rite Bishop who resides in the US who made a statement outside of the synod. I did not see any MSM report about the Bishop from the Middle East, Lebanon as I recall, who spoke out about how Islam has a policy of working to destroy other religions.
And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him:"Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are - northward, southward, eastward and westward; for ALL the land which you see I give to you and your descendants FOREVER" (Gen. 13:24-25).
Sorry, archbishop, I'll take God's Word!
I am sure the Eastern Catholic bishops of the Middle East will loose all sorts of sleep over the idea that the Israeli government is upset with them. /s
He was talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, not the state of Israel.
He was talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, not the state of Israel.
“He was talking about the Kingdom of Heaven, not the state of Israel.”
Wrong! And that’s one of the problems with the heresy of replacement theology.
The promise of the land is to literal Israel and the Jewish people, not the church or the kingdom of heaven.
One of the worse problems of replacement theology is how Christians who buy into that false doctrine take Scriptures from the Bible meant for Israel and falsely “spiritualise” them to mean the “church” or as you stated the “kingdom of heaven” in that instance.
That promise was to the Hebrew descendants of Abraham through “Isaac” and “Jacob” literally.
In Ezekial 36:21-22 the promise was made by the Lord-
“I will bring you back from the nations where I have scattered you, back to ‘your own land’.,
no longer will there be two kingdoms in ‘your land’, and no longer will ‘your land’ be divided by two nations.”
“And there shall be one king over you.”
And the reference to king is a reference to the Messiah,-Yeshua!
In Luke 21:24 the Lord prophesied:
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down [conquered, occupied] of the Gentiles, ‘until’the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
The word ‘until’ is very important. It means the Lord was saying that the time would come when these bad fortunes for the Jewish people of Israel would be reversed.
In June of 1967, for the first time in 2,000 years, Jerusalem was no longer ‘trodden down’ and occupied by foreigners. In a war of self-defense, all Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria were returned to Israel.
1948 saw a fullfilment of the restoration of ‘national’ Israel.
The “spiritual restoration” is also occurring. Many are coming to know and embrace the true Messiah of Israel-Yeshua [Jesus]
Baloney. I suppose that includes kicking the Palestinians off their land. Right?
That said, I do not doubt that the current Jewish presence in Palestine/Israel may have biblical, even apocalyptic significance, but will not go so far as to acknowledge a divine right to that land based upon the Old Covenant promise to the patriarchs and their descendants. The complete absence of the Jewish Temple and inability to offer true worship in its absence strongly suggests that the old promises have now been realized in new covenant ways and were meant to pass and give way to Christ and what came to be known as Christianity.
God has not abandoned the Jewish people, and many will come to Christ at some point prior to the end, but it does not follow that the Old Covenant promises continue to remain intact, as they once stood.
P.S. The Catholic Church does not subscribe to the view that the modern political state of Israel has some God given claim to the land.
As far as replacement theology goes, the Church teaches that the Jewish Nation was destined to give way to the Catholic Church as the fullment of God’s promise to Abraham that the whole world would be blessed through his descendants,the Jewish People. And that happened. It was through Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, all Jews, and through the Apostles, all Jews, that the Catholic Church began. Catholics today then are also descendants of Abraham, not in a racial sense, but in a spiritual sense.
“...the Church teaches that the Jewish Nation was destined to give way to the Catholic Church...”
That is not what the Bible teaches.
Refer to the Scriptures in the last posted comment.
“It was through Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, all Jews, and through the Apostles, all Jews, that the Catholic Church began.”
[that the “Catholic Church” began?]
The “Catholic Church” did not begin until Constantine. The first followers and believers in Yeshua Jesus] were Jews, not Catholics.
As far as “church” is concerned, read my treatment of this old ecclesiastical word:
A brief note on the english word “church”:
The word rendered as church in modern english Bibles dates back to the Middle Ages. That is, the modern recognized spelling of the word.
1st Tim 3:15 plainly states that the church is the “house of God”.
Throughout the Bible the House of God is also refered to as the temple of God.
In Matt Yeshua [Jesus] stated that the one who hears his words and does what he says is like a person who builds their “house” on a rock. And when the storms come, that house will not ‘fall’ because it is built on a rock.
In John 2:19 Yeshua [Jesus] said,-
“Destroy this temple [ House of God] and in three days I will raise it up again.”
Zechariah 6:12-”...behold the man whose name is the Branch; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord”
In Scripture the God of Israel is frequently refered to as the “Rock”.
David said “You oh Lord are the “Rock” of my salvation.
“The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me...”-2nd Samuel 23:3
God is the Rock
Matt 6:18-”...upon this Rock I will build my [ house, temple] and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”
This is so important because their is a counterfeit Christian cult religion that teaches that the “temple” not made with hands raised up and is being built by Yeshua, “fell” and dissappeared from the earth until a man named Joesph Smith brought about it’s restoration in the mid-1800’s in America.
The above Scriptures serve to blow that false teaching out of the water.
Back to the word church.
William Tyndale who is responsible for the very first New Testament printed in the english language never use the word church a single time in his translation. Instead he used the word “congregation”.
Flash forward to the publication of the 1611 King James Bible. There were strict rules put in place for it’s translation. One of those rules was that the “old ecclesiastical words” be retained. Especially the word “church”.-
Metzger, Bruce, “The Bible in Translation”,p. 71, 2001
One thing that comes to mind concerning this is the possible lingering anger and animosity towards William Tyndale held by Papal authorities.
After all, Tyndale along with Luther, Wycliffe, and other reformers were very steadfast in their insistance that there is no Biblical basis for the office of a “Pope”.
Now if that wouldn’t get a Papal Catholic fatwa slapped against you, nothing would.
Indeed, in Scripture we find a list of designated postions such as teachers, evangelists, pastors, prophets, emissaries [apostles]. But no “Pope”.-Ephesians 4:11
And these were for the work of the ministry and the edifying the “body” of believers. The “body” which are the “living stones” :
“...you yourselves , as living stones , are being built into a spiritual “house” to be priests set apart for God to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him through Yeshua the Messiah.”- 1st Peter 2:5
We who by God’s unmerited, undeserved favor, have come to embrace and follow the Christ [ Messiah] , experiencing the forgiveness of all our sins, we have not replaced Israel, nor succeeded Israel, nor become a new Israel,—
rather as Paul says “...we have been grafted in”. We have been made partakers of the salvation that Yeshua [Jesus] plainly says in John 4:22 is “...of the Jews.”
Video, audio link:
Israeli Pastor Wayne Hilsden of the King of Kings Worship center in Jerusalem, speaks on the topic of the “New Covenant”-
http://www.kkcj.org/teaching/sermon/the-renewed-covenant/
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MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Elysée Palace, Paris
Dear friends, it is with great pleasure that I meet with you this evening. Our meeting auspiciously coincides with the vigil of the weekly celebration of the shabbat, the day which from time immemorial has occupied a significant position in the religious and cultural life of the people of Israel. Every pious Jew sanctifies the shabbat with the reading of the Scriptures and the reciting of the Psalms. Dear friends, as you know, the prayer of Jesus also was nourished by the Psalms. Regularly he went to the temple and the synagogue. There he too listened to the word on the Sabbath. There he wanted to underline the goodness with which God cares for man, even in the arrangement of time. Does not the Talmud Yoma (85b) say: the Sabbath is offered to you, but you are not offered to the Sabbath? Christ has asked the people of the Covenant to recognize always the unprecedented greatness and love of the Creator for all humanity. Dear friends, because of that which unites us and that which separates us, we share a relationship that should be strengthened and lived. And we know that these fraternal bonds constitute a continual invitation to know and to respect one another better.
By her very nature the Catholic Church feels obliged to respect the Covenant made by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, the Church herself is situated within the eternal Covenant of the Almighty, whose plans are immutable, and she respects the children of the Promise, the children of the Covenant, as her beloved brothers and sisters in the faith. She compellingly repeats, through my voice, the words of the great Pope Pius XI, my beloved predecessor: Spiritually, we are Semites (Allocution to the Belgian Pilgrims, 16 September 1938). The Church therefore is opposed to every form of anti-Semitism, which can never be theologically justified. The theologian Henri de Lubac, in a time of darkness, as Pius XII (Summi Pontificatus, 10 October 1939) described it, added that to be anti-Semitic also signifies being anti-Christian (cf. Un nuovo fronte religioso in: Israele e la Fede Cristiana [1942]). Once again I feel the duty to pay heartfelt recognition to those who have died unjustly and to those that have dedicated themselves to assure that the names of these victims may always be remembered. God does not forget! I cannot neglect, on an occasion such as this, to recall the eminent role played by the Jews of France in the building up of the whole nation and of their prestigious contribution to her spiritual patrimony. They have given - and continue to give - great figures to the spheres of politics, culture and the arts. To each one of them I extend affectionate and respectful wishes and with fervour I invoke upon all of your families and upon all of your communities a special Blessing of the Lord of time and of history. Shabbat shalom!
© Copyright 2008 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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